Who Was That Guy?
by ardavenport
Summary: Roy and Johnny have a shift with a serious of runs with victims with whom they have some things in common.
1. Chapter 1

**WHO WAS THAT GUY?**

by ardavenport

* * *

><p><strong>- - - Part 1<strong>

_The police were there when they arrived, along with a crowd of curious college students, loitering in the morning sunshine. It was going to be another hot, California day. Officer Vince Howard ran up to the driver's side of the squad as Roy got out._

_"What've we got, Vince?"_

_"Kid got beat up pretty bad and left behind the fraternity house. Looks like it happened late last night and he's been lying here ever since." Vince followed Roy as he went to the other side of the squad to get their equipment out._

_"Is he conscious, Vince?" Johnny grabbed the biophone and drug box. Roy grabbed the trauma box and the oxygen._

_"Kind of in and out. He's really beat up. Hasn't told us who did it, but from what he's said so far, it's somebody he knows."_

_Roy didn't know what kind of 'friends' would beat a guy senseless and then leave him lying in the bushes. Vince told them his name was Ron Turner. Male. About twenty-five. About six feet tall, 155 pounds. Broken arm, possible broken ribs and collar bone. Multiple contusions on the face and body. Roy gingerly touched the dried blood on his swollen face. No significant bleeding, but his blood pressure was low. Possible internal bleeding. He perked up right away after the IV went in and they gave him oxygen. But he didn't want to go to the hospital. He kept saying he would be okay, but just lifting his head was excruciating for him. He had to give in and let them take him. And they couldn't give him anything for the pain; he had a head injury._

_"They didn't mean it. They didn't mean it." was all he would say to Vince through the oxygen mask as they loaded him into the ambulance. Roy sat down next to him. Johnny banged the doors close._

_"Hey, you're going to be okay, but you've got to lie still." Roy only laid his hand on Ron Turner's shoulder, putting no pressure on it to keep from causing him any more pain. He hoped this guy would talk to the cops after the doctors patched him up. Ron Turner didn't need 'friends' like that. . . ._

* * *

><p><strong>Incident:<strong> Man injured, assault

**Location:** Two-Eight-Six University Lane

**Time Out:** Nine-Oh-Six

**Transported:** Rampart . . . .

* * *

><p>Seated at the small desk opposite the Captain's in the Station Fifty-One office, Roy finished the entry in the log book. Exhaling, he sat back in his chair. After examining at Ron Turner at Rampart, Dr. Brackett had sent him upstairs for surgery. He was pretty sure Turner had internal bleeding. The whole time, Turner had insisted that his friends didn't mean to hurt him. They cared about him. But when Roy and Johnny finished re-stocking the drug and trauma boxes, they ran into Ron Turner's very worried mother in the waiting room. None of his 'friends' were there, but a police detective arrived to ask her some questions.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>- - - End Part 1<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**WHO WAS THAT GUY?**

by ardavenport

* * *

><p><strong>- - - Part 2<strong>

"How'd it go?" Captain Stanley looked up from the folder on his desk in Station Fifty-One's little office.

For a second, Gage wondered which of the last three runs he was asking about. But, of course, it had to be Harry Munson and Glen Overton, the two firefighters from Station Eighty-Five who had been injured at a warehouse fire. It had been a slow morning with that Turner guy, but that didn't last and they had three back-to-back runs and he had to enter in the log book.

"Oh, Munson's going to be fine, Cap. He'll probably have a scar on his leg."

Stanley nodded, but then frowned. "What about Overton?"

"He's not so good. Doctor Early isn't sure how it's going to turn out."

"He's going to live?"

"Yeah." John nodded. He wasn't at liberty to tell even Captain Stanley how bad it really was. Glen Overton had a broken back. He'd had no feeling in his legs at all. Even if some feeling returned in his legs, there was no way he could go back to being a fireman.

Stanley didn't ask him any more. Gage slid down into the seat at the other desk and reached across it for the log book. He dug out crumpled note pages from his front pocket. The warehouse fire had been the second of the the three that he and Roy were coming back from.

He flattened one note page. Taking his pen out of his shirt pocket, John started writing.

* * *

><p><strong>Incident:<strong> Man with back injury from fall

**Location: **Nine-Nine-Oh-Two Cedar Place

**Time Out:** Eleven-Twenty-Seven

**Transported:** Rampart . . . .

* * *

><p><em>A very worried young woman answered the doorbell when they arrived. She had short, perky auburn hair and wore a pink flannel bathrobe.<em>

_"He's over here; he's over here." She hurried them into the living room. A man in blue coveralls lay on his back on the green-carpeted floor next to an over-turned end table and a broken lamp. They knelt next to him. His name was Juan. He grimaced and moaned while they examined him and took his vital signs. His pulse was rapid, but he did not have any numbness or tingling in his legs. The woman, Mrs. Sorenson, stood over them and rapidly ran through the reasons why the young man who serviced their pool had tripped over one of her son's toys in the house. Roy went out for the back board and John's foot kicked a small model car as he helped slide it under Juan with his partner. It rolled under the coffee table._

_"Hey, Rosita. I'll be fine." He was probably about six feet tall, slender and he had black hair and brown eyes like a Latin lover. His smile turned radiant when he looked up at Mrs. Sorenson and she would blush. John and Roy averted their eyes while they impatiently waited for the ambulance._

_It didn't take that long to come, but just before the approaching siren stopped, a man with thinning brown hair and wearing a suit and tie came in through the door. He shoved Roy aside and grabbed Juan's hand. Mr. Sorenson had come home from work for lunch._

_"Juan! What happened?"_

_Juan reassured Mr. Sorenson that there had only been a tiny accident and that he would be up again in no time._

_"Steven . . . . I-I . . . I didn't know that you and Jaun knew each other." She blushed. Steven had not let go of Juan's hand._

_John and Roy averted their eyes. The ambulance attendants came in and lifted Juan onto the gurney. And they averted their eyes as they loaded him into the ambulane while Mr. and Mrs. Sorenson argued about which one of them would ride in with Juan._

. . . . John initialed the entry.

That had been a strange run. The most Roy would say was, 'Interesting couple.' He did not say whether he meant Mr. and Mrs. Sorenson, or either one of them and Juan. John just nodded, agreed and let it go at that. On their way out of Rampart they had seen Mr. and Mrs. Sorenson holding hands and casting worried looks down the hall toward the treatment rooms.

They were both starving and grabbed sandwiches at Rampart's cafeteria because Kelly was making macaroni and cheese at the Station, it would be cold when they got back and Roy had a much better version of it for dinner with his family last night. They got through most of their meal before the next call came through on the Handi-Talkie. John unfolded the next note pages, picked out two and started writing . . . .

* * *

><p><strong>Incident:<strong> Structure fire, injured firefighters

**Location:** One-One-Two, Two-hundred and Nineteenth Street

**Time Out:** Fourteen-Thirteen

**Transported:** Rampart . . . .

* * *

><p><em>Station Fifty-One had been called in on a second alarm at a warehouse fire. They saw the black smoke over the nearby buildings a quarter mile before they arrived. Engine Fifty-One was already there along with three other engines and Squad Forty-Five with a yellow blanket with the two paramedics treating three victims next to it. The amplified voice of Engine One-Ten's captain called out orders to them as they rolled into the parking lot.<em>

_"Squad Fifty-One, go to the back of the building, we have more injuries."_

_John killed the siren while Roy drove around the perimeter. They saw a truck and another engine there. And a fireman kneeling by two others._

_The warehouse was an older building and a beam had suddenly fallen on two men inside manning a hose. One saw it coming just in time to knock the other out of the way and took most of it. His friend dragged him out and then the other firefighters dragged them both out, got their turnouts off and started with as much first aid as they could. A fresh billow of black smoke rose above the buring building in the midday heat as another part of the roof gave out._

_"How're you doing?" John put the drug box down next to Glen Overton; male, mid-twenties, a hundrend and sixty-five to a hundred and seventy pounds._

_"I'm okay. But you gotta look at Harry." His eyes pleaded, his dark hair wet and sticking to his forehead. "He got burned carrying me out."_

_"He's going to be okay. My partner's taking care of him; let's just take care of you." His legs were covered with a clean white sheet and another fireman had a steady stream of water pouring over them. Johnny peeked and saw the burns._

_"Are you hurt anywhere? Did anything fall on you, Glen?"_

_He winced. "Yeah, my back. Beam landed right on top of me."_

_"Your back hurts?"_

_"Yeah." He moved his hand in a pointing gesture at his lower back. "Right around here."_

_John took over the irrigation from the fireman and told him to get the backboard from the squad. Roy bent over the BP cuff around Harry Munson's arm; he was about the same size as Glen, but maybe twenty pounds heavier. John took the second stethoscope and BP cuff out of the trauma box and took Glen Overton's vitals. He told Harry to lie quietly, but injured man kept talking about Glen carrying him out of the building. Roy read the vitals to Rampart on the biophone. Glen needed morphine for his burns. Harry didn't. Even after they slid him onto the back board._

_The ambulance arrived quickly. The captain from Station Sixty-Five caught their attention as they loaded Glen and Harry; they were his men. John kept his head down while Roy told him that they had to get them to Rampart as quickly as possible. Harry weakly waved a hand with a thumbs up before they closed the doors. Both Roy and John rode with them._

_"How're ya doin', Harry?" The morphine was working for Glen. He only had burns over fifteen percent of his legs. He would make it._

_"Pretty good after you got me out of there."_

_"You saved me first, pal."_

_John kept expecting Harry to figure out that he couldn't move or feel his legs. But he didn't. When they arrived at Rampart, Glen went to Treatment Room Two with Doctor Morton. John went with Harry to Room Four where Doctor Early examined him._

_"Can you feel this, Harry?"_

_"Feel what?"_

_Doctor Early checked both his legs. There was no reaction, no movement, no feeling. Harry stared up at the ceiling while Doctor Early reassured him that paralysis could often be temporary. They would know more when they got the x-rays. The wounded fireman curtly nodded, his eyes looking everywhere else except back at Early. They left him with the x-ray technician and an orderly._

_Roy was already at the base station, filling a small box with supplies. John helped. Dixie was there and she asked how the firemen were doing. Glen Overton would be fine though he would have a few scars. But Harry Munson . . . . they ddin't know. Or didn't want to know. Even if he walked again, his career was over._

_"That's rough." Dixie lowered her eyes. John and Roy collected the equipment boxes and left, went down the busy hallway, turned left to the entrance._

_Chet had driven the squad in and parked it on the far side of the lot. He was leaning against it, apparently unwilling to wait for them in the hospital. John knew that the first words out of his mouth would be to ask how Overton and Munson were doing._

_"Y'know, that could have been us, back there." John stood next to Roy, just outside the entrance._

_"Yeah." Roy nodded. "Yeah, I know."_

_They went together back to the squad. . . . _

. . . . Captain Stanley got up from his desk and left. John heard voices just outside the door and Roy came in.

"Stoker's making sloppy joes for dinner. They're almost ready. How's it going here?"

John tapped the end of his green pen on the open log book. "I've still got to do the guy in the park. I've been thinking about that fire." The pen dropped onto the page.

"Yeah." Roy sighed and leaned on the desk. "I know what you mean. The guys have been talking about it in there." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Y'know Glen told me that Harry's father owns a business, furniture or something; he can give him a job after he's out of the hospital. He'll be fine."

"Yeah." John sat back in the chair, looked up at his partner and said what they both knew but couldn't say to the others. "Roy, Harry's never going to walk again."

Roy stared down at the floor. "Yeah. I know." He pressed his lips together. John sat and watched him and finally looked back down at the log book. There wasn't much more to say.

"It coulda' been us." He picked up his pen and turned it around in his fingers.

"Yeah."

Sighing, John hunched forward on his elbows, the pen poised to write the next log entry, but he was having trouble thinking about what came next.

"You need any help with that?"

He looked up again. "No. I've got it."

"Well, okay." Roy edged away, gesturing toward the door. "I'll go help the guys with dinner."

John stared at the brick wall where Roy had just stood. He exhaled and stretched his neck. Smoothing out the last note page on the desk, he started writing.

* * *

><p><strong>Incident:<strong> Man unconscious

**Location:** Lobos Park

**Time out**: Seventeen-Twenty-two

**Transported:** Rampart . . . .

* * *

><p><em>The squad bounced over the curb as Roy drove directly onto the grass and headed toward the samll crowd of people waving at them. One person lay on the ground.<em>

_"It's Pete, he's passed out. He's really red and his skin feels really hot." A perky girl in a white tennis outfit hopped around them as they got out their equipment and rapid-spoke what she knew, her short blonde hair bouncing around her head. "He's been running all day, 'cause Dan and Barry didn't believe him when he said that an Apache warrior could run down a horse by chaing it all day." She kept right behind them as they knelt by her friend. "And he was doing fine and Dorie here said he's been at it on the track all afternoon, but when we got here he didn't look so good and then he just passed out."_

_A short, black-haired woman, presumably Dorie, wrung her hands, her eyes anxiously darting from them to the victim and back._

_John set up the biophone while Roy checked his vital signs. Rapid pulse, shallow breathing, warm, dry skin, pupils dialated. Male, about twenty-five, a hundred and sixty pounds. It was over ninety-five degrees and apparently Pete had not taken a break since morning._

_John got only blank stares from the four young people standing around when he asked if any of them had any ice. Roy pointed past them to a group of picnickers under some trees in the park. They had a large cooler. Two of the men ran to ask them for ice while John got the burn pack and O2 from the squad._

_The men came back with a cooler full of ice, pie and potato salad, and two more bystanders._

_"Is he going to be all right?" The dark-haired girl hugged herself. She wore a short, sleeveless green dress and tennis shoes, perfect for a hot afternoon, but she still looked cold with worry._

_Roy answered while John put in the second IV. "We're going to do everything we can for him, Ma'am."_

_"Next time, old Pete better take a horse instead of trying to run one down."_

_"Yeah, this Apache warrior is going by ambulance."_

_John's eyes flicked up toward Dan and Barry and then down to the victim. He had black hair and a tan and could have been either Indian or Mexican. The two men explained to the picnickers that Pete was Indian only on his mother's side. John clenched his teeth. Roy just kept his head down over the biophone and asked the people to stay back._

_The rest of Dan and Barry's narrative was drowned out by the ambulance arriving. They quickly loaded Pete into the ambulance. John got in after him and Roy handed him the drug box and biophone before closing the doors._

_Pete was still unconscious, but he looked better, though the ice on his chest and legs was already half melted. He checked the IVs and sat back next to Hal, one of the ambulance attendants. He hoped that when Pete woke up in the hospital he had better friends waiting for him than Dan and Barry._

* * *

><p><strong>- - - End Part 2<strong>


	3. Chapter 3

**WHO WAS THAT GUY?**

by ardavenport

**- - - Part 3**

* * *

><p>Roy yawned as he walked into the office. It wasn't too late but he was tired. Johnny had done the last three and he didn't want to leave the log for the morning, especially if they got another call.<p>

He sat down, flipped the book open, took his pen out and clicked it. He frowned down at Pete Gregory's entry and the empty space under in. But there wasn't really anything to add about what happened at Rampart at the end of the last run.

* * *

><p><strong>Incident:<strong> Man injured, stabbed (mgged behind a bar)

**Location:** At the bar

**Time out:** Twenty-One-Oh-Four

**Transported:** Rampart . . . .

* * *

><p><em>The police were already there, red lights flashing and Officer Tim Foster waved them around to the back. Another officer knelt by the victim in the shadows by the dumpster behind the bar. Male, about six feet tall, mid-twenties, a hundred and sixty pounds.<em>

_"Looks like a mugging. His wallet and watch are gone and he got beat up pretty bad."_

_"Sir? Sir?" Johnny leaned over him. _

_The victim moaned, his head rolling from side to side. Johnny took his chin and checked his pupils. Uneven and sluggish. Under the pen light, the dark blotches on his face in the shadows turned to bright red blood, his skin pale against his longish black hair. There were bloody wounds on his arms as well and they bandaged them._

_Johnny kept trying to talk to him, but the man seemed to only be conscious enough to know that he was in pain. Roy asked Stan, the officer kneeling with them, for more information, but he didn't know anything more. Tim came out with a couple of people from the inside the bar. One of them thought he recognized their victim, but didn't know him. Roy asked Tim to get a flashlight and Stan went back in with the bar patrons to talk to more people and try to get a name. Dr. Brackett at Rampart told them to start an IV D5W._

_"Ooooooh, wha' 'appened?" The victim moved his arms and Roy hastily jerked the IV needle away from the vein he was aiming for._

_"Hey, hey." Johnny got him to look at him. "Hey, don't move around. Hey, hey. We're paramedics with the LA County Fire Department. You're going to be fine, but you've got to lie still. Can you tell me where you're hurt?"_

_Johnny had to ask him three times before he finally seemed to get the message and lie still enough for Roy to finish the IV. And they got a name. Ned Warinsky. He had a little too much beer and went out for some air with a girl he'd met. And someone jumped him. He didn't see who it was, but it was a man's voice that demanded his wallet. He didn't want to give it up. The man who wanted to take his wallet had a knife._

_"Hey, don't move around." Johnny felt around on his back where Ned said it hurt. His hand came back bloody. Roy handed him a pressure bandage. They heard the ambulance siren approaching._

_"Hey!" Johnny grabbed Ned's shoulders when he tried to get up. Roy grabbed his arm with the IV. Apparently Ned suddenly remembered his date had gone inside just before he was attacked. It was a singles bar and he had just met her and she seemed like a nice girl. They told him they'd have the police tell her where he was, and he didn't look like he was in any shape to talk to her anyway._

_He kept still for them as they lifted him onto the gurney and he asked Stan about his girlfriend when the police officer returned. But Stan just shook his head. He hadn't seen her and only the bartender and waitress knew his name. Roy went with him in the ambulance._

_Roy told him to keep still and he did, but Ned talked about this girl the whole way to Rampart. She had blond hair and blue eyes and a great figure and they had everything in common. She liked the same books and magazines that he did and she liked sports and camping. Roy let him talk. As long as he was lucid, his head injury probably wasn't getting any worse._

_When they got to Rampart, Ned told Dr. Brackett about this perfect girl as well. He just told Ned to be quiet while he examined him. Brackett didn't like the wound on his back at all and thought that Ned might need exploratory surgery, but the head injury was a problem, too. Roy left him when the x-ray technician arrived, but he promised to ask the cops if they found his girlfriend, if he saw them._

_Johnny was re-stocking the drug box at the Rampart base station. He shook his head when Roy told him about Ned's girlfriend._

_"The cops told me that they've been looking for a couple who've been mugging guys at singles bars. She meets the guy and gets him drunk and when he staggers outside, her friend robs him. Was she a pretty blond with blue eyes?"_

_Roy nodded and repeated what Ned had been saying about her. Johnny shrugged and put white packets of sterile pads into the drug box. "Definitely not my idea of the perfect girl."_

_Roy agreed. He helped finish and Nurse Stebbins, who was working the night shift, signed them out._

_"Hey, let me go! You can't keep me here!"_

_Both paramedics turned at the sound of a scuffle. Down the hall by the elevator, a security guard had a man in a hospital gown by the arm. And a girl in a short green dress tugged on the security guard's arm. They recognized Pete Gregory, the man who got heat stroke after running all day in the sun. He was wearing a short pink, ladies coat over the hospital gown. Roy and Johnny went to help, but two nurses and Doctor Early beat them to it._

_"It's not him. Let him go."_

_The guard reluctantly obeyed Early. The girl detached herself from him and reattached to Gregory who stopped yelling, but he still wanted to be released. Early told him that he was recovering well, but they didn't release people in the middle of the night. The office was closed and he was just a doctor and couldn't do anything about that. Gregory sneered, but Early's mild-mannered common sense won out._

_"He really doesn't like hospitals." The woman from the park leaned toward Early and spoke with a loud whisper that everyone in the hallway could hear._

_"Dorie, that's not it. I just don't want to have Dan and Barry and that dippy girlfriend of yours picking me up tomorrow so they can give me the Indian chief routine again." Pete replied with the same over-loud whisper._

_"Pete, you're so sensitive about that! Just don't let them get to you like that - - "_

_"I am NOT sensitive - -"_

_"Hey, hey." Johnny stepped forward. "Doc, can you give us a minute?"_

_Early, the nurses and the guard moved away._

_"Can I just have a minute with him?"_

_Pouting suspiciously, Dorie stepped away from them. Johnny motioned Pete closer to the wall and further away from the others and started talking to him in a real whisper. Pete glared back at him at first, but apparently whatever Johnny said connected and soon they were having an animated, but very quiet conversation._

_The nurses moved on, but the guard and Dorie stayed. Roy watched his partner talk to the wayward patient in the hospital slippers, gown and his girlfriend's coat. Obviously, Johnny had to be telling him about his own experiences with someone ribbing him about being a half-Indian. That had been a problem (in the form of Chet Kelly) during their first few months at Station Fifty-One until his partner had, for reasons unfathomable to Roy, just decided to ignroe it. But Roy wasn't sure that Johnny was the best guy to counsel someone else about not being too sensitive._

_Roy's eyes shifted to the people on his right. Doctor Early. Dorie, the pouting girl in the green dress. The security guard frowning at the runaway patient._

_"Hey, Doc, what did you mean earlier when you said 'it wasn't him'?_

_"Oh, we had a guy get out of the psych ward. He's tried before and looks like the third time was the charm, but we think he's still in the hospital."_

_"Oh." Roy frowned. "Well, what does he look like?"_

_"Oh, about six feet tall, dark hair, brown eyes, about a hundred and fifty-five pounds; he's twenty-four. He's not violent, but he could be dangerous, though mostly to himself."_

_Roy nodded. "I'll keep my eyes open."_

_Johnny patted Pete's arm, the signal that the friendly advice was done. Doctor Early got a nurse's attention and she came back with a wheelchair, which was good since the pink coat wasn't quite long enough in the back to cover up everything left exposed by the hospital gown._

_Doctor Early thanked Johnny and Roy told him about the escaped mental patient. They both unsubtly scanned all the people in the area as the left but they didn't see anyone who obviously didn't belong there. Roy didn't ask his partner about his advice to Pete until they got in the squad._

_"So, um, what did you say to that guy back there?" He sat behind the steering wheel, the key in his hand. If Johnny didn't want to talk about it; if it was too private, he was happy to let it drop, but he was curious._

_"Huh? You mean Pete? Oh, I was just telling him that if Dorie was willing to help him sneak out of a hospital in the middle of the night, then he was crazy not to ask her out." He tilted his head. "He said they were just friends and she'd never go out with him and I said, 'You gotta be crazy.' A girl who's gonna hang around all afternoon watching you get heat stroke is practically begging for you to ask." His tone rose to a high pitch for emphasis._

_Roy stared back at him. "You were talking to him about his girl friend?"_

_Johnny looked confused by his reaction. "Well, yeah. What else would I be talking to him about?"_

_Shaking his head, Roy wasn't sure that Johnny was the best guy to be giving out dating advice, either, given the number of girlfriends who dumped him._

_He put the key in the ignition started the squad._

* * *

><p><strong>- - - End Part 3<br>**


	4. Chapter 4

**WHO WAS THAT GUY?**

by ardavenport

* * *

><p><strong>- - - Part 4<strong>

The window in the office was dark, except for the reflected glow from the city lights outside. The room light flicked on. Both Gage and Captain Stanley yawned as they entered the office. John ran his hand through his dark hair. The garage door rattled closed behind them. The other guys were headed back to bed.

"Man, those guys were lucky." John sat down at the second desk and reached for the log book.

"You're telling me." Stanley reached for the Station's log book. They both might have waited until morning to enter their last run, but since it was for another LA County Fire Department vehicle, some people from headquarters were coming by in the morning to talk to them about it.

* * *

><p><strong>Incident:<strong> Traffic accident

**Location:** One-Twenty-Fourth and Lexington

**Time out:** One-Fifty-Six

**Transported:** Rampart . . . .

* * *

><p><em>They saw Squad Ninety-Nine's reds flashing as soon as they turned onto Lexington. It had rolled on its side, the front grill pressed into a utility pole. The reds stood out in the darkness where the street light had gone out. Across the street was a large black sedan at the end of a long row of flattened hedge. A police car, lights flashing, was parked next to that and one of the officers jogged across the street to them.<em>

_Engine Fifty-One stopped just past the wrecked squad. Roy went with Captain Stanley to talk to the cop._

_"Hey. You guys okay?" Chet leaned down to look through the wind shield. The squad was lying on the driver's side, the under-carriage dark and exposed. John climbed up on the passenger side and called down to the two inside._

_"Hey, Ed, Kevin, are you two okay?"_

_"Oh we're fine!" Kevin Steverly's voice hit a sarcastic high note. "We just thought we'd hang around here until someone could come along and ask us stupid questions. Of COURSE we're not okay! We'd have climbed out of this thing before now if we could!"_

_"Shut up, Kev." Ed Florini grimaced up from the shadows. Only their faces and parts of their white t-shirts and dark suspenders were visible in the dim light coming in through the wind sheild. "I broke my arm. Kev messed up his shoulder. Ow."_

_"Okay." John tried to open the passenger door. Then he reached inside to pull up the lock. He opened the door, but realized that he couldn't just climb in. Ed and Kevin were practically on top of each other and he couldn't get in without stepping on them. "Stay right there. We'll have you out in a sec."_

_"Where're we gonna go?" Kevin's voice went high on the last word._

_Captain Stanley was now sizing up the damaged squad with Marco and Chet. Roy was across the street with the policemen and a balding middle-aged man in suit, shirt hanging down out of his pants, tie loose. Marco went to get the asbestos blanket and Chet got the tools. John waved back up at the passenger door._

_"They don't look too bad, but Ed has a broken arm. Kevin hurt his shoulder, so we can't get them out through the door; there's not enough room for me to climb down in there."_

_"We're going through the wind shield." Stanley pointed and Chet helped John stuff the blanket down into the cab. Kevin and Ed still had two good hands between them and covered themselves before Stanley and Lopez started in on the wind shield. Roy came back as they climbed down off the squad._

_"They got hit by a drunk, didn't they?" John sneered at the driver across the street being 'helped' by the two cops, his arms handcuffed behind his back, to the back of the police car._

_"Yeah." Roy replied with simple weariness about getting a call for another drunk driver. "Not a scratch. Come on, let's get the equipment."_

_They got the drug box, trauma box and biophone out and Kelly laid out a yellow plastic blanket on the pavement. Back at the car, they were just pulling the wind shield off. Neither paramedic inside moved until Roh and John were there._

_"I caught my arm in the steering wheel. Snapped it like a twig, but it didn't break the skin." Ed let Roy help him out first. "Oh, ah, I banged up my knee."_

_Roy paused in freeing his legs. "Which one?"_

_"Both of them. Aaaughh."_

_Marco helped Roy with Ed while Kelly joined John with Kevin. He groaned, but let them do most of the work._

_"Ooooh, I think I messed up my ribs, too."_

_"Does it hurt to breath?" John moved his arm where he supported the injured man. "Can you make it over there?"_

_Kevin nodded. "Yeah, I can make it."_

_They got him over to the blanket. Ed looked up at Roy._

_"Don't tell me that guy we almost hit was a drunk."_

_Roy finished immobilizing Ed's arm. "Okay, I won't tell you that you were almost hit by a drunk."_

_"Hey!" Kevin shouted, startling John who was trying to listen to his BP. "You can tell me it was a drunk! That guy didn't even slow down at the intersection. And he couldn't say he didn't see us because it's two in the morning and we were the only cars on the street!"_

_"Hey!" John shook the stethoscope at him. "I'm trying to listen." Kevin kept quiet just long enough for him to finish._

_"You know what the worst part is? You know what that call was for when we got hit?"_

_John already knew the answer, but he let Roy say it._

_"It was for a drunk?"  
><em>

_"Yes! At a bar! Drunk at a bar. Imagine that happening! Ow!"_

_"Hey! It might hurt a little less if you stop moving." John raised his voice; this was not the time for Kevin Steverly's smart mouth. He wasn't too badly hurt; his chest sounded fine and he didn't have any internal injuries, but John wasn't in the mood for it on a 2 AM call._

_Kevin sighed up at the sky, accepting his situation. "Yeah, yeah, I know the drill." He lay quietly while John imobilized his shoulder. Roy was already on the biophone to Rampart._

_The ambulance arrived quickly enough, right after the tow truck and the car from headquarters. The engine crew was still hosing the gas off the pavement as they loaded their fellow paramedics into the ambulance. John went with them._

_Ed moaned about how he rolled the squad even if it wasn't his fault while Kevin pointed out that this kind of thing could happen to any paramedics on any call. They both ignored John about keeping quiet because they knew just as much as he did about their condition and neither one had a head injury since they were wearing their helmets when the accident happened. Kevin grimaced up at him as he offered his own form of reassurance._

_"Next drunk'll be aiming for you guys, Gage."_

* * *

><p><strong>- - - End Part 4<strong>


	5. Chapter 5

**WHO WAS THAT GUY?**

by ardavenport

* * *

><p><strong>- - - Part 5<strong>

"Holy smokes, what happened to you two?" Captain Stanley, now in street clothes, gaped at them, the B-shift captain standing just behind him in the doorway of the Station Fifty-One office.

Roy groaned. "It's not ours. It wasn't from the run. It was something at the hospital." He gestured with his hands without touching his bloodstained t-shirt and turnout pants. "Do you mind if we get changed first?"

"Oh, sure, no problem. But the guy from headquarters is here and he'll want to hear about that run with Squad Ninety-Nine."

"Okay, Cap. We'll be right there."

They gave the short version of what happened to the B-shift paramedics on their way to the locker room. Chet Kelly almost ran into them on his way out.

"Oh, man! Remind me not to become a paramedic." He fearfully moved on while Johnny muttered a 'Like you ever could.'

At their lockers, Roy and Johnny immediately stripped off their bloody shirts. Roy really wanted a shower and he saw Johnny eyeing the stall, but they had to get back to the office to talk to the guy from headquarters. They quickly washed up at the sinks before putting on their street clothes. When they went back to the office, Stanley introduced them to George Hasselmann. They described what they had seen at the accident and told them that Ed and Kevin were fine. In fact, Kevin Steverly and Ed Florini had been put in the same room in Orthopedics at Rampart, though they would be on the sick list for awhile.

Hasselmann took a few notes and then left. Captain Stanley and Captain Northrup from B-shift remained. They wanted to hear what happened on their last run. Roy sat down at the log book while Johnny told them the story.

* * *

><p><strong>Incident:<strong> Man with abdominal pain.

**Location:** Four-Four-Nine-Two Greenleaf Lane

**Time out:** Five-Fifty-Three

**Transported:** Rampart . . . .

* * *

><p><em>A young red-haired woman in green-striped pajamas, robe and slippers ran out of the apartment building as soon as they stopped, double-parking in front.<em>

_"It's my husband, he's had these terrible stomach pains all night, and I wanted to take him to the hospital, but he wouldn't go, but it got so baaaaad." She led them through a gate into a small courtyard while she talked. The sun was barely up, the grass and bushes gray-green in the half-light. They followed her into the apartment._

_"He was throwing up, but he just - - "_

_Her husband was sitting up in light blue pajams on the couch, his hands up to hold them off. "Hey, I'm okay. I'm feeling a lot better, Cindy." He was pale and sweating and breathing a little shallowly._

_Roy put the drug box on the coffee table and sat next to him._

_"Well, that's great, but since we're here, why don't we just take a look at you."_

_"Oh, Steve, pleeeease let them look at you. You were so sick."_

_He nodded amiably. "It's okay, that's fine. I'm just so glad I'm feeling better." He ran a hand through his longish black hair._

_"Now where does it hurt?" Sitting on the coffee table, Johnny face him._

_"Down here." Steve pointed._

_"Here?"_

_"Ow. Yeah. Guess it's still a little sore."_

_Johnny's brown eyes met Roy's._

_"Lower right quadrant's tender and a little distended." He looked back at Steve's wife. "Can I use your phone to call the hospital?"_

_"Oh, yes, of course." She brought the phone over from an end table. It had a long cord. Johnny dialed the Rampart number and then relayed Steve's vital signals. Twenty eight years old, six feet, a hundred and seventy pounds. His blood pressure was much too low, his pulse fast. Then Johnny called the ambulance._

_"Are you sure I need that? It's a lot better than it was." Steve carefully touched his lower abdomen. "Really, it feels a lot better."_

_Roy got up. "I know it feels better, but we really think you should go to the hospital." He did not want say what he thought was the problem to Steve and his wife unless he really needed to, to get him to go to the hospital; it was up to the doctors to do the diagnosing, but he had all the symptoms of a ruptured appendix._

_Steve looked a little worried when they told him the doctor wanted them to start an IV, but he coorperated and Cindy encouraged him. She also briefly went to their bedroom and dressed in slacks and shirt in record time by Roy's reconning for a woman, and was ready with her purse to ride up front in the ambulance when it arrived. Steve was feeling less well as they went in, but the IV kept him stable and as soon as Brackett had a quick look at him when they arrived he sent Steve upstairs right away for emergency surgery. Roy gave him a pat on the shoulder and a thumbs up and then he was gone. Brackett gave him a pat on the arm and a thumbs up for getting Steve to them so quickly._

_Feeling pretty satisfied with the end of this shift, Roy looked up and down the hallway of Rampart's Emergency Department. It was relatively quiet with only a few people in the waiting area at one end of the hall, including Steve's wife, Cindy, who was having a serious talk with the head nurse, Dixie McCall. But even at it's quietest, there were always a certain number of people coming and going, nurses, orderlies in white, a security guard in gray and black._

_A few steps one way showed that Johnny wasn't at the coffee pot at the base station. From there, one direction led to the hospital's break room, in the opposite direction were the bathrooms. Roy turned around and walked to toward the bathrooms, the most logical early morning pit stop._

_"Hey! Hey!"_

_Startled, Roy ran toward his partner's shout, past the confused stares of the people who were looking around wondering what was happening._

_Roy crashed through the men's room door. A white coat and head of thick dark hair struggled on top of another person._

_"Hey - aaaah!"_

_Roy grabbed the man in the white coat to pull him off of Johnny. He was about the same size and build as his partner, so Roy out-weighted him by at least twenty pounds. Roy fell back as he let Johnny . . . _

_. . . . And suddenly he was dealing with wildly thrashing arms and legs. He had his arm around the guy's neck, but he furiously tried to squirm out of his grip, forcing Roy to turn around to keep behind gun. His partner coughed, the sound loud and echo-y in the men's room before he shouted again._

_"Hey!"_

_Johnny joined him, trying to grab a wildly flailing arm. Roy saw a glint of silver, a flash of red._

_"Hey! Get some help in here with this guy!" The men's room seemed to amplify his partner's call for help. Roy just grit his teeth while Johnny tried to grab the arm and hand with the scalpel in it. There was a lot more blood, running down the arm._

_Roy took a wrong step, lost his balance and they all went down hard on the floor and the man in the white coat twisted around. Roy stared back at a contorted face, wild, terrified brown eyes, animal throat growls and spit. He grabbed the man's wrist, not to protect himself, but to keep this frantic man from plunging the scalpel into his own throat. But his wrist was slick with blood, running down into his his sleeve and onto Roy's t-shirt._

_Struggling on the bottom of the pile, Roy automatically pulled his body away to the side as well as he could when the_

_scalpel dove downward. Blood spurted over his chest._

_Johnny suddenly wrenched the man away so hard that they flipped over together under the sinks as they struggled together, face to face._

_"Aaaaaaaaiiiiiiihhhhhh!" The man let out an inhuman scream._

_The door slammed open as Roy dove for the scalpel hand._

_"Hey, come on and help us with this guy, will ya!"_

_This time, Johnny's call for help was answered with many more arms grabbing all of them, pulling them apart and finally holding down the man in the white coat, now stained red. Blood marred every white medical uniform, their t-shirts; it smeared the floor._

_"Uuuunh-uuuunnh-uuuunnhhh-uuuuuunnnnhhh!" The man didn't say an intelligible words that Roy recognized, as if the fight was just driving air out of him past his vocal cords. _

_"Get a gurney in here, right now! And get this man into restraints" Brackett's shout echoed even louder than Johnny's. Roy hung onto an arm and bleeding wrist that was starting to lose some of it's strength. Blood loss, a lot of it, red on white everywhere. _

_"Uuuuu-uuuuh, uuuuunnn-uuuuuuh, uuuuuunnnnnnhhhhh." His voice was getting lower and weaker._

_Besides him and Johnny, they had three orderlies, the security guard, plus Doctors Brackett and Morton._

_"Get that gurney in here, now!" Brackett had a hand pressed to the man's side. The doorway to the men's room was barely wide enough for another orderly to push the gurney in with a lot of thumping on the door and wall._

_"All right on the count of three. One. Two. Three." They all lifted the man with Dr. Brackett, though Roy had only a forearm to hold onto and none of his weight. Everyone had to let go to get the gurney out of the men's room. Except for Dr. Brackett who climbed up on top of the gurney over him to keep pressure on the wounds on his chest._

_One of the last out, Roy watched the whole group, including Johnny, disappear into Treatment Room Two. He couldn't hear anything through the closed door._

_"Roy?" He turned and saw Nurse Betty, a plain, gentle-voiced, middle-aged woman in nurse's white dress and cap. "Are you all right?"_

_He looked down at his bloody t-shirt, pulled it away from his body. There were no holes. Blood had gotten onto his turnout pants and boots, but that could mostly be gotten out. The t-shirt would likely go straight to his wife's rag bin._

_"Yeah, I'm okay." He waved toward the closed door across the hall. "It's all his."_

_"Well, why don't we just go to another room, so you can clean up."_

_"Oh, sure." He supposed that it was a good idea for the Rampart staff to not leave people in bloody clothes standing around in the hallway. He went with her to Treatment Room Four. _

_Who had that guy been? And why did he attack Johnny?_

_As they entered the empty treatment room, he realized what must have happened._

_"Hey, was that your escaped mental patient?"_

_Betty nodded. "That was him. It's a pretty sad case, actually. I just hope he didn't hurt himself too bad."_

_Roy went straight to the basins to wash his hands off and then try to wipe some of it from his t-shirt. Betty gave him a couple of small hand towels. "Do you think he was there all night?" He wetted a towel, pulled up his t-shirt and tried to wipe under it._

_She shrugged. "Could have been. He stole Doctor Edwards' lab coat and some clothes from one of the other patients, but he didn't have any shoes and I guess he was trying to get those."_

_Roy looked down at his fireman's boots. "I don't know if these would have worked for him. They're kind of conspicuous."_

_The door opened. Johnny stuck his head in. "Hey, Roy, you okay?"_

_"Yeah, I'm fine. What about you?'_

_"I'm fine; not a scratch." He came all the way in and joined them at the basins. "Brackett thinks he can sew that guy back together, but he's not outta the woods yet." He plunged his hands into a second basin of clean water. "But boy, we sure were lucky. That guy was crazy."_

_"Yeah." Roy did all he could with wiping under his t-shirt and put it aside. All he wanted to do now was get back to the station and change._

_"Man." Johnny rubbed his hands together in the water, splashing it. "That was too much. I sure don' wanna do that again."_

_"Me either."_

_Johnny finished washing off his hands and arms; he looked to either side of him. Betty handed him a towel. He dried his hands and then ineffectively dabbed at his bloody t-shirt._

_"Ugh." he scrunched up his face, his brown eyes narrowed in distaste, and looked back up at his partner. "Man, Roy. Who was that guy?"_

**-o-o-o-o-o- END -o-o-o-o-o-**

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to Mark VII Productions, Inc., Universal Studios and whoever else owns the 1970's TV show Emergency!; I am just playing in their sandbox.


End file.
